


In Times Of Need (the devil himself gave me a friend)

by QuenchiestCactusJuice99



Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe - Sosuke Aizen Doesn’t Exist, Animal Shelter, Animals, Aromantic!Grimmjow, Asexual!Grimmjow, Asexual!Ichigo, Coffee Appears Almost Enough To Be In The Character Tags, Fake Relationship, Fight Ring AU, Fight Ring/Club, Fighting, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Isshin Kurosaki’s A+ Parenting, Lots of Cursing, Modern AU, Probable Inaccuracy About Fight Rings/Clubs, Sparring, The Author doesn’t know how fight rings/clubs work, and there are no explicit food scenes, but not explicitly, cursing, dinner is mentioned, for reals, it’s platonic - Freeform, no powers au, that stays fake
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-06-27 04:34:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19783357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuenchiestCactusJuice99/pseuds/QuenchiestCactusJuice99
Summary: Ichigo is too tired to think about the consequences of faking a relationship with the guy who starts a fist fight with him behind his apartment at midnight, and somehow, he finds himself standing outside an illegal fight ring Grimmjow calls ‘Hueco Mundo’.Alternatively: the secret police nicknamed ‘Shinigami’ have been trying to shut down Hueco Mundo for years. They’re close to getting it down for good when one of the Espada - fighters ranked in the top ten - shows up with a new face in tow.The sixth Espada, Grimmjow, acting friendly with someone they’ve never even heard of - it sparks enough concern when he’s just acting friendly, but then the young man fights Grimmjow to a standstill.





	In Times Of Need (the devil himself gave me a friend)

Ichigo isn’t having a good day. In fact, it’s probably one of his worst days to date. He’d been clued in that it wasn’t going to get any better when he’d received four voicemails from Isshin by noon.

He’d woken up early for no discernible reason, lying awake in bed from 4:30 to 5:00, when he gives up on getting any more sleep and goes to make himself some coffee, whereupon he realizes that Renji had been over last night before he got home, because he’s out of coffee grounds. 

He goes to buy some from the little 24-hour store a few blocks down and spends way too long looking for what he wants. Then he has a good few seconds of panic during which he thinks he’s left his wallet at home. (Nestled in the inside pocket of his jacket.)

He nearly locks himself out of his car, gets back to his apartment and promptly forgets both his keys and phone for a quarter of an hour. When he has his coffee - cheap and not really worth the effort that went to buying it - he finally remembers and retrieves them.

It steadily declines from there. The first call from Isshin is missed, the voicemail noticed around 6:30-ish, Ichigo having been out trying to convince his car to start despite having been fine literally a half an hour before. It goes ignored. Ichigo is already late to work and he isn’t in the mood to deal with Isshin’s whining about any of the variety of things he doesn’t appreciate about his own son.

To name a few off the top of his head; that he’s never around anymore - gee dad, wonder why - that he never responds to calls or texts anymore -  _ gee dad wonder why _ \- his lack of a girlfriend by now - ‘that Orihime’s nice and pretty to boot, but your karate friend, Tatsuki, isn’t too bad either’ and oh, but Ichigo is  _ sick of his shit _ \- that he doesn’t work at the Kurosaki clinic, that he decided move ‘so far away’, that he moved out in the first place when he ‘doesn’t even have a girl to settle down with’, that he works two jobs and ‘if you were going to work at two places anyway why not help out your dear old dad’, the fact that Ichigo works with ‘some seriously hot chicks’ at both places and ‘still isn’t dating at least one’, and that he hardly talks to anyone back home anymore.

But not why, no. Because for all his pointed remarks, loud comments, the bemoaning of ‘how’ Isshin had raised such a son, he never asks why.

Why Ichigo moved out, why Ichigo never answers his calls,  _ why _ Ichigo isn’t talking to him right now.

The voicemail was also left at 6:17. That means Isshin is most likely hungover or still drunk, which dramatically increases the chance that he’ll bring Masaki or the twins into things.

Which would make it a lot closer to a guilt trip than listing of disappointments. And Ichigo is  _ not in the mood. _

So he ignores it and gets to the animal shelter and makes the mistake of letting his mood lift, thinking that things might start to look up as he walks in… and is promptly yelled at for ten consecutive minutes by the foul-tempered pseudo-manager - who  _ never _ stops by - until the man is purple in the face, veins throbbing, for ‘slacking’.

It continues. The pseudo-manager stays - since fucking  _ when, _ his mind demands - and swoops around menacingly, watching him like a hawk and generally upsetting the animals, hollering about loafing whenever Ichigo isn’t in motion for longer than ten seconds.

Completely honestly, Ichigo hasn’t been this angry in a long time. He takes vindictive pleasure in letting his phone just ring the next two times Isshin calls, even though Pseudo-Manager looks like he wants Ichigo to answer just to yell at him some more. The fourth time Ichigo is on Trio Duty - he’s one of the only four people who can handle exercising the three biggest dogs there, so he’s saddled with it more often than not - but his terrible mood, slightly lifted by the dogs, sours upon seeing it. It means Isshin isn’t going to give up.

Doesn’t mean Ichigo is about to give up either.

But it only gets worse.

By four, when he leaves the shelter to spend the open hour at his apartment, Isshin’s left two more voicemails and a plethora of messages with an extreme amount of emojis, from his lock screen’s limited perspective. But he also has a few messages from Yuzu and Karin, so he grudgingly opens his phone and instantly wishes he hadn’t. Isshin had picked the Mandatory Monthly Dinner date.

Tomorrow night.

No wonder he was being so…  _ persistent.  _ The Mandatory Monthly Dinner is, of course, the only way Isshin can get and keep Ichigo in the house for longer than five minutes. He would’ve made it weekly - had attempted, the bastard, after biweekly was shot down - if Ichigo hadn’t ignored him when he tried. He wouldn’t have shown up anyway, not so often. So Isshin picked a day out of each month for Ichigo to mandatorily have dinner with them, and Ichigo still would’ve ignored him if not for the fact that he  _ did _ miss his sisters.

A couple weeks without Isshin was enough to psych himself up for a night of the man’s antics if it meant he could check up on his little sisters, make sure they were well taken care of. 

(One word and Ichigo would have them moved into his apartment by morning. Then again, Isshin had always spoiled the girls, always been better with them than Ichigo. But that didn’t matter. Not so long as they were happy. And if not, Ichigo could present a pretty strong abuse case to knock Isshin out of the running for custody.)

But the point is that the entire day has been stressful, not even including the lessons he puts in at the dojo, and Ichigo is  _ done. _

The guys show up, surrounding him in the alley behind his apartment, to mug him or maybe just beat him up for the hell of it. It’s eleven at night, he’s  _ tired _ , has been pushed and pulled and stretched thin all day, and he just fucking  _ snaps. _

He’s still shaking with anger when a deep voice comments eagerly, “Holy shit.  _ Fight me. _ Right now.”

It’s too dark in the shadows to make out who’s speaking, if Ichigo even knows them. He doubts it. He snarls anyway, “Just fucking back off already! You don’t even know how terrible today has been, not to mention now I have to deal with my  _ insufferable  _ dad  _ tomorrow _ -“

“You’re already warmed up!” The voice crows back, clearly not listening, and in the dark, Ichigo can’t tell if they’re a girl or boy. His money would usually be on guy, but, in his defense, he’s known several women with  _ very _ deep voices.

What he can see is a pair of eerie bright blue eyes, peering wickedly at him from only two or so meters away.

His frustrated hiss seems to signal the start of the fight, because his breath leaves in a whoosh when he’s immediately tackled. Neither of them can see the other except for when they dart across the only sliver of moonlight in the alley, so there’s a great deal of fumbling on both sides, but the person he’s fighting is laughing breathlessly the entire time. Ichigo doesn’t back down or shy away - when he finds a piece of whoever he’s fighting, he  _ hits it _ \- and it only serves to make them even happier.

By the time the both of them exhausted and only giving and receiving glancing blows instead of the hits they were exchanging early, it’s even later, but Ichigo is grudgingly appreciative for the fight because now he’s more tired than angry.

On the other hand… now that the pace has slowed he’s thinking again, about the dinner, the questions he’ll have to endure about his lack of a love life, the million complaints Isshin stockpiles for when he sees his son in person.

So he blames his next actions on the accumulation of stress over the day, exhaustion and irritation and such overriding his higher mental functions. 

He and the other guy - he’s made the assumption that it is a guy through quicksilver moments in light and the build of the other fighter - were both panting like the shelter’s old Saint Bernard, Rex, after a walk, and practically leaning against each other for support because they’d been grappling when both of their muscles had decided to simultaneously give out and leave them hardly standing with trembling hands locked on each other’s biceps.

The moonlight had illuminated his opponent more than once. Ichigo’d caught bright hair that, in this darkness, could be green, grey, blue, or white respectively, and the sliver of light was nowhere near big enough to catch the man’s entire face, but Ichigo had definitely seen a tattoo. A big tattoo, wide and light with dark edges, though Ichigo couldn’t tell what it was.

He opens his mouth to say something along the lines of either ‘thanks I guess’ or ‘what the fuck dude’, but what comes out is-

“Go out with me.”

Ichigo would smack his forehead, hide his face behind his hands if his arms would cooperate. As it is, his head drops as he groans incomprehensibly. “Foot meet mouth. Fuck. I take it back. Hell, now I have to  _ explain _ -“

Raucous laughter smashes into his ears, loud and wild. “Who the fuck  _ are _ you, anyway?”

“Ichigo Kurosaki,” He grumbles, not a fan of being laughed at. “Who’s my assaulter this fine, fine night?”

“I didn’t!” The man yelps, offended. “You were already fighting! And my name’s Grimmjow,” He tacks on, grin audible, “Grimmjow Jaegerjaques. Don’t forget it. And how the shit does dating tie into your pops, anyway?”

So, maybe Grimmjow actually had been listening earlier. That was more than slightly embarrassing. “It’s a really long story,” He tries lamely, “I-“

“I got time,” Grimmjow interrupts smoothly, and Ichigo can hear his grin turn sharp. “You’re pretty interesting, Scary-Berry, and ya ain’t half-bad at beating people to bloody pulp. Spill your secret and I’ll give you one of mine, yeah?”

“Um,  _ no, _ ” Ichigo protests automatically, completely blindsided. “I don’t want either of those things.”

“Too bad, Scary-Berry.”

Ichigo glares into the darkness in front of his face until he thinks he might be able to make out part of Grimmjow’s silhouette. The silence stretches.

“Want ta head to my place for this?” Grimmjow asks idly, “I can drive you home or whatever.”

“Uh, no. My apartment is right here. We can talk inside, I guess, if you aren’t going to let this go.” Ichigo isn’t sure if Grimmjow can hear the disgruntlement in his voice, but the man stays silent.

Ichigo rolls his shoulder, nearly knocking both of them over, “If you murder me or something though, we’re going to have words.”

Grimmjow snorts, shoving back none too gently. “Yes, fuck, fine. Let’s go inside.”

XxXxXxXxXOoOoOoOoO

“So… let me see if I’ve fucking got this straight. Your deadbeat dad is pushing you to get a girlfriend - that you don’t want but he doesn’t fucking care - and generally being a douche, prick, bastard, asshole, every other applicable cuss in the book, so you’ve been avoiding him like a spineless coward. But you have to go to his fucking house for some shitty dinner you don’t actually want to be at besides to see if he’s not abusing your sisters. You’re fed up with his bullshit and want to piss him off or at least fuck up his plans or whatever, right?”

Ichigo crosses his arms. “That’s about it,” He confirms.

Grimmjow snorts. “You’ve got some fucking nerve, assuming I’ll agree to this.” Then he smirks, tattoo following. “Let’s do it.”

As it turned out, Grimmjow’s face tattoo was a lot larger than Ichigo originally gave it credit for. Stretching from his right ear to almost half his mouth, from chin to cheekbone, was an enormous panther jaw that encompassed nearly the entire right side of Grimmjow’s face. The way it was drawn with his lips, it yawned when he yawned, grinned when he grinned, and - to be honest - it was really fucking cool. Not that Ichigo was about to say so out loud.

Grimmjow’s hair was, in fact, dyed a bright, eye-searing blue, with matching eyeshadow - though he had only applied it to the bottom lids and Ichigo was nowhere near a makeup expert but he was pretty sure that eyeshadow went on top of your eyelids? - and his ears were pierced with little silver hoops.

“We’ll have to make a plan,” Ichigo muses, and Grimmjow scoffs.

“Plans are for people who need ‘em. We tell your fuckwad of a progenitor the truth. Eh, part of it, anyway.”

Ichigo raises an eyebrow. “We met by beating each other up?”

“Exactly,” Grimmjow nods, like this is the perfect solution. Although…

Ichigo lets a smirk curl across his face. “Alright. What else?”

XxXxXxXxXOoOoOoOoO 

Ichigo is… unusually giddy. That’s not the right word, but eh. He hasn’t been this exciting for something in… hm. In a long time, he settles on, and tries to still his traitorously twitching lips.

Grimmjow had showed up at his door twenty minutes ago wearing a black shirt with the white print ‘YES IT’S L’ORÉAL’ and black leather jacket, wearing more piercings (Ichigo hadn’t even noticed that he’d had more piercing gaps until he walked in with two more on each ear) and reapplied eyeshadow. He’s even gone far enough to put on a faint tracing of eyeliner that Ichigo only noticed when he was trying to figure out how Grimmjow had gotten his eyeshadow to look exactly the same as yesterday.

(The only explanation Ichigo can think of is that he hadn’t slept. It was literally exactly the same, there was  _ no other way. _ )

Ichigo’s question of why was met with the confusing answer of ‘makes my eyes pop, dumbass’, and whatever that was supposed to mean or do, it only gave Ichigo the unfortunate mental image of Grimmjow cackling as he popped eyes like grapes.

Ichigo didn’t bother to do much besides throw on a white shirt and cargo shorts before Grimmjow mercilessly nitpicked him into a red t-shirt and black jeans. He’d also apparently had the foresight to bring a couple things from his own house, because he dumped a frankly, ridiculous pile of leather cuffs, bracelets, rings, necklaces and bands onto Ichigo’s lap right after.

After having him try on  _ every single one, _ Grimmjow makes the executive decision for Ichigo to wear just one of the dark brown interlocking cuffs on his right wrist, instead of the solid black ones, also foregoing the gray set with studs and the red set with spikes, ignoring the rings completely, and having him wear three colorful elastic bands on his left wrist.

“Makes it look like you’re collecting,” Grimmjow tells him, which clears up exactly nothing. 

“We need to fix your hair,” Is the next announcement, and Ichigo wants to pat at his head defensively.

“What’s wrong with my hair?”

Grimmjow sweeps his eyes up and down critically. “Everything. It’s fine on its own, Scary-Berry, but not with that outfit. It already fuckin’ looks like you’ve dyed it, why not do it for real? Not the whole mop,” He condescends when Ichigo scowls, a protest on the tip of his tongue, “Just a splash of black somewhere, other colors would clash atrociously.”

Because Ichigo is fast realizing that Grimmjow is something of a fashion enthusiast, he grumpily allows it to happen and ends up with two streaks of black right next to each other.

The Ichigo that shows up at Isshin’s door is definitely not the one he was expecting, that’s for sure. Ichigo privately relishes in the shock and confusion when the man opens the door.

Yuzu comes rocketing past before Isshin can even say a word, throwing herself forward with a squeal and viciously clamping her arms around his middle. Karin follows more sedately but joins the hug, and Ichigo takes advantage of his height to lean over and lift both of them for a few moments, grinning for real because these are his  _ sisters _ and he missed them.

When he sets them down, the girls take notice of Grimmjow, and Yuzu gives him a wave and a smile because she’s polite like that, but Karin’s eyes are practically saucers and sparkling, glued to Grimmjow’s jaw tattoo.

Ichigo snickers quietly. “Karin, Yuzu, this is Grimmjow. Grimmjow, these are the sisters I was talking about, Yuzu and Karin. And that’s my old man,” He tacks on indifferently, nodding at Isshin.

“Isshin Kurosaki,” He says, looking between them but extending a hand to Grimmjow. The man takes it, gripping maybe a bit hard if Isshin’s sudden grimace is any indication.

“Grimmjow Jaegerjaques,” He says with a fierce grin that his tattoo mimics. Karin’s eyes get even wider.

Ichigo is already feeling good about the night, the memory of Isshin grimacing in pain but not willing to voice such enough to last him almost halfway through dinner, even with Isshin laughing uproariously and cracking ‘jokes’ that he plays off as teasing.

Grimmjow’s eyes start to darken after the second so-called joke and only continue to do so as the night progresses, but his expression gives nothing away. He genuinely  _ preens _ as he shows off the varied expressions his tattoo can mimic to Karin, and Isshin doesn’t seem to notice either, what with Grimmjow reacting gamely to his ribbing about getting stuck with Ichigo. Karin is justifiably distracted, but Yuzu glances quickly between Isshin and Grimmjow at so many different intervals Ichigo thinks she might see.

The halfway mark is where it starts to go downhill. Ichigo notices Isshin’s not-so-good natured teasing edging into offensive territory as it starts targeting Grimmjow - his eyeshadow and tattoo and choice of clothing, and this is where Grimmjow starts to push back. He laughs with Isshin when the man says, “Yeah, I can’t say much for your taste!”

He laughs with Isshin, and so Isshin has to laugh with him when he says, “I’ve never had problems with my taste before. If anyone else had grievances, well, there are perfectly good alleys all over town, yanno?”

Isshin starts to tense up as the following comments keep to the same trend, alley brawls and fist fights, scarred knuckles and years spent building muscle in a shadowed ring where the currency is broken bones, missing teeth and a bloody reputation.

Karin is loving the exchanges, Ichigo can tell, especially when Isshin can’t figure out how to respond. Eventually, when dinner is over with, Isshin corrals Ichigo in the living room, Grimmjow still talking with the girls at the table, and hisses, “Why are you together? I know the place he’s talking about, people like him are  _ dangerous. _ You’re already being influenced,” Isshin gestures to his hair and his outfit and Ichigo grits his teeth, “He has no qualms hurting people, which means he has no qualms hurting  _ you.” _

_ Like you had no qualms hurting me?  _ Ichigo doesn’t ask, and tells Isshin, “He won’t.”

Isshin sneaks a glance at the doorway, where Ichigo can hear Grimmjow laughing, and Karin laughing with him. Yuzu says something like, “You  _ didn’t” _ through her giggles.

“What’s he offered you?” Isshin asks, “Is he threatening you? I can-“  _ hurt _ “-help you-“

“I don’t need your-“  _ hurt _ “-help,” Ichigo returns sharply. “Not anymore.”

“Oi, Scary-Berry,” Grimmjow calls. “Got a minute?”

Ichigo locks eyes with Isshin, who’s signaling  _ no _ and  _ stop _ , and calls back, deliberately evenly, “Absolutely.”

Isshin, unfortunately, follows him out of the living room. Grimmjow is leaning back in his chair, looking thoroughly entertained, and tells him, with an air of heavy amusement, “Your sisters are dissing your sense of style. They could tell right away I’m the one who picked your shit.”

He gestured to Ichigo’s singular cuff and bands and Ichigo laughs, startled. “These are his, actually,” He says.

Isshin makes an aborted movement and immediately returns to the conversation with a, “So, how did you two meet?”

Grimmjow’s grin gets dangerous and he stands, lazily slinging an arm around Ichigo’s shoulders. “Oh, you know,” He starts, tattoo following his widening grin. “We were dukin’ it out in the alley behind his apartment and man, we just fuckin’  _ clicked. _ ”

Ichigo can tell he’s baiting Isshin, wonders if it has to do with the Hueco Mundo ring Grimmjow keeps talking about that Isshin seems to recognize.

The conversation doesn’t get as dark as it did while they were eating, what with how Grimmjow had seemed to have a bloody experience for every topic mentioned, but it still goes downhill, Grimmjow no longer bothering to hide the predatory malice behind his sharp teeth, dripping off his tongue in thinly veiled warnings.

Ichigo is slightly worried about this kind of talk near his sisters, but they watch the conversation with knowing eyes and Ichigo decides that they understand what’s happening well enough, they’re pretty tough anyhow.

Grimmjow’s vague subtlety all but vanishes, and Ichigo enjoys seeing Isshin steadily lose his composure the longer Grimmjow kept his arm wrapped around Ichigo. In fact, the dramatic little shit, he took every opportunity to press closer, hold tighter, shove it in Isshin’s face.

The goodbye is stilted from Isshin, but Yuzu and Karin tackle him and Grimmjow by extension for another hug and he complies easily, and as soon as the door shuts and Isshin is no longer peering, eyes narrowed, through the window, Grimmjow immediately and efficiently detaches himself.

“Think his plans are sufficiently fucked?” The man asks idly, and Ichigo chokes on a laugh.

“You could say that,” He says agreeably, and then, measured, considering, “You’re pretty good at this.”

Grimmjow grins - he’s been doing a lot of that - but this one is just toothy and jagged, unlike the contained sharpness of earlier. “Lotsa practice,” He says. “I’ve made plenty’a bad decisions, I’ll tell ya that.”

Ichigo notes, wondering whether he should be worried, that Grimmjow’s accent is getting stronger.

“I know a thing or two about bad decisions,” Ichigo responds, because he does and he also doesn’t quite know how to react with Grimmjow. He’s unfamiliar, at present, still someone Ichigo has known for a grand total of twenty-two hours, and he’d chosen to offer up years of secrets in the name of getting under someone’s skin.

(It tells him some things about Grimmjow, the way he works, the way he prioritizes.)

‘He won’t’, Ichigo had told Isshin, but he doesn’t actually know that, does he? He doesn’t actually know Grimmjow at all. 

Well, he decides.

(In another world, he might decide to cut ties. ‘Thanks for your help and goodbye, it was much appreciated.’ But here…)

Well, he decides, he needs to get to know Grimmjow, then. Ignorance is not bliss, he reminds himself.

What does he know about Grimmjow? The man flaunts his name, his muscles, his tattoos. He’d noticed Karin’s interest in the tattoos and gone about to demonstrate, gone out of his way to show off for her. He likes the attention, Ichigo hypothesizes, and resolves to test that theory later. 

It makes him wonder - does Grimmjow do that for the other aspects of himself? If someone takes interest in his muscles, does he deliberately show them off? If someone takes interest in his eyeshadow, his eyeliner - would he show them how he does it, demonstrate? Or would he simply express his emotions more through his eyes and less through his gestures, just to make the blue crinkle? Would he tilt his head, narrow his eyes just so to increase visibility of his eyeliner?

Or was he simply indulging Karin’s curiosity? Maybe he likes to flaunt, maybe he doesn’t, and Ichigo doesn’t know yet but he  _ can. _ Just because he doesn’t know Grimmjow yet doesn’t mean he won’t ever.

He knows Grimmjow likes- nay, loves to fight. He doesn’t know what about it appeals to him - is it the adrenaline? The thrill of it, the exertion, the contact? The hitting, maybe taking out frustrations, and maybe the thought of a challenge.

Ichigo wonders if he and Grimmjow will be friends. Wonders if he would be adverse to staying around, maybe not physically hanging around all the time - though Grimmjow did look the type to skulk in street shadows at all times of night and day - but if he would hate keeping contact.

Because, if Ichigo is being honest with himself - he tends to be in the habit but sometimes he falls out of it and this may be one such time - he liked the fight. It had burned off energy and anger, cleared his head.

Grimmjow, he decides, wouldn’t make for a terrible friend. (God knows he’s been short on those lately.)

And so, as they’re in the car heading back, Ichigo says, “We should spar, sometime.”

Grimmjow looks up, unspeakably delighted, and then - he  _ laughs. _ “I think I’ve got a better idea,” He says, and his grin doesn’t abate the rest of the way to Ichigo’s apartment.

When Grimmjow has gone and Ichigo sits heavily on his couch, sighing deeply as he kicks his feet up, something crinkles under his legs. The something turns out to be a piece of paper with two addresses on it, the first signed ‘if you need a place to crash’. The second marked ‘my better idea - Hueco Mundo’.

And, well.  _ Well. _


End file.
